Cambridge University has appointed its first permanent ballroom dancing coach as the activity becomes the latest campus craze.

Bruce Lait, an award winning dancer who was caught up in the London bombings in July, will spend three days a week training the teams that students hope will wrest the inter-varsity title from Oxford.

The image of dancing as old fashioned and "sissy" has been transformed by the television show Strictly Come Dancing in which celebrities learn to master the dance floor, he says.

A record 2,000 students joined the society for ballroom and Latin dance last year and 27 universities competed in the inter-varsity dance association's national championships. Oxford and Cambridge, two of the leading teams, compete head-on in a blues varsity match each May which is taking on the intensity of the boat race.

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Oxford, whose dancers can achieve a full blue compared with a half blue at Cambridge, have won the match for the past six years and their rivals, who have only had part-time coaching in the past, are preparing to fight back.

Mr Lait, who will fit his coaching duties around a touring show in which he stars, said: "For the last few years I have been their secret weapon, coaching individual students, but now I will be able to work with hundreds."

Oxford says it is not worried. "If Cambridge want to win then they should hire me," says Bruce Richardson, Oxford's director of coaching. "We are entirely focused on winning but we do have fun along the way."

The Cambridge students say they lack the funds of the Oxford team, which is sponsored by the international dance teachers' association and can afford tail suits at £700 each and dresses of up to £300.

"Here at Cambridge, dancing is more of a social thing than at Oxford where it is very competitive," says Felicia Yap, 25, a postgraduate student of history. "We want to win, though, and this year I think we stand a better chance."

Last week Mr Lait was training three couples in a dingy netball court on the outskirts of the city. Dancing is supposed to look effortless, but the students say it involves hard physical exercise, painstaking practice, confidence and a positive attitude.

"Six weeks ago I thought I would never be dancing again," said Mr Lait as he recalled the horror of the London bombings.

He had been travelling to rehearsals when the bomb went off on the circle line train between Liverpool Street and Aldgate, killing seven and injuring 100.

"We were sitting just six feet away," says Mr Lait, who believes he survived because two women standing on the train took the force of the blast, one dying on top of him. He suffered burns and cuts to his face and the left side of his body, and was one of the victims visited by the Queen while recovering in the Royal London Hospital, Whitechapel. His dance partner, Crystal Main, escaped with minor injuries but was severely traumatised.

Chris Horner, 21, a medical student and member of the Cambridge team, said ballroom dancing was becoming more acceptable for men, a claim reflected in the fact that a record 40 male students turned up for trials this year.

"There's a stereotype of male dancers as gay and I get quite a few comments but I've also got a half blue in modern pentathlon and I'm a rugby referee.

"It's strange that male dancers pressed against a beautiful woman are supposed to be gay while sports where 15 men run around holding on to each other or getting sweaty together in the showers are seen as manly," he said.

At Oxford, which fields six teams in the student championships compared with Cambridge's four, Mr Richardson says members practise six days a week.

"It means forfeiting something of their social lives but I like to think they have fun and it gives them a good physical workout," he says.

Mr Richardson predicts that the Oxford and Cambridge dance competition will become as well known as the boat race, but will prove harder.